Opening up a guitar using the "Loud music" method

[steelvibe]

Only if you name your record player "Psychiatrist".

[fregly]

I would use your method but it would get me evicted. Just play the guitar lots and lots, and this comes with the added benefit of musical skills improving.

[merlin666]

All my guitars sounded great out of the box, so there was no need to open them up.

[mawmow]

Boucher builder is known to have music constantly played in their wood warehouse to help open up...

[FoxHound4690]

Originally Posted by Edgar Poe

How much more can an acoustic guitar vibrate, than just playing it.

Ed

What i've noticed is my acoustic vibrates a HELL OF ALOT when placed in front of my sub when i've got a maximum bass album playing. I cranked up "party like a rock star" as high as my soundbar would go, guitar was on its stand right in front of the sub and it was vibrating like crazy.

[Mark Stone]

Originally Posted by FoxHound4690

Hey guys, i've just started trying the method of opening up my acoustic guitar quicker by having it in front of a sub while i have a maximum bass album playing for the intense vibrations.

Have any of you ever used this method before with loud music and do you think it actually works on an acoustic guitar?

Japanese luthier Kazuo Yairi used this method for his handmade instruments. That's good enough for me

[seannx]

About 9 years ago we got a set of 7 quartz crystal singing bowls for our gallery. Ranging from 8" to 18” in diameter, they were a "true tone" set meaning that the frequency of each bowl was a true tone. The biggest one was a low e, and others were g, c, d, a, b, and f. They were arranged on a table, along with my VAD-2 Solid Sitka/EIR Guitar, which was relatively new at the time.

When you played them, a snark tuner would show each bowl's note as accurate enough to use them as a reference for tuning my guitar. Also, with the snark on the guitar, playing one of the bowls would result in the corresponding note appearing on the tuner, plus an audible sympathetic sound coming from the guitar. It was obvious that the playing the bowls caused the guitar top to vibrate.

We sold the bowls individually over the course of 6 months, and customers and staff played them everyday. I don’t know for sure what difference that may have made for “opening up" my guitar, but it sure seemed to get more full and resonant during that time.

These days 6 of my guitars are out on stands in my living good, very close to one of my vintage (with 12” woofer) Marantz stereo speakers. I like to think that the vibrations coming from all of my favorite music is having a good effect.

[Howard Emerson]

Originally Posted by FoxHound4690

Hey guys, i've just started trying the method of opening up my acoustic guitar quicker by having it in front of a sub while i have a maximum bass album playing for the intense vibrations.

Have any of you ever used this method before with loud music and do you think it actually works on an acoustic guitar?

When I briefly attended Berklee School of Music in Boston, MA in the fall 0f 1969 (to avoid the draft), many of the guitar students would routinely leave their guitars leaning against, or on a stand right in front of, their stereo speakers.

I'm sure they got the idea from someone of the previous generation.....

HE

[AndrewG]

Originally Posted by Crazyguitardj

Forgive me for being ignorant, but do y'all mind explaining what you mean by opening up the guitar?

Artificially vibrating a guitar in the hope that the sound will 'improve' quicker than playing it conventionally will.
As Mr.Carruth says the procedure is somewhat controversial with proponents and detractors on both sides of the debate. I'm of the opinion that if my guitars didn't sound great when I bought them, I wouldn't have bought them. If the sound improves over time, great, if it doesn't I still have a fine-sounding guitar.
A guitar's tone will change over time, but how and why it happens has been argued over seemingly forever. I prefer to let wood do its thing on its own, unmolested.

[budglo]

Originally Posted by AndrewG

Artificially vibrating a guitar in the hope that the sound will 'improve' quicker than playing it conventionally will.
As Mr.Carruth says the procedure is somewhat controversial with proponents and detractors on both sides of the debate. I'm of the opinion that if my guitars didn't sound great when I bought them, I wouldn't have bought them. If the sound improves over time, great, if it doesn't I still have a fine-sounding guitar.
A guitar's tone will change over time, but how and why it happens has been argued over seemingly forever. I prefer to let wood do its thing on its own, unmolested.

Thanks for clarification. I am 61 and have been playing guitar for a long time . I have had several guitars for quite a while and havent really noticed this phenomenon personally. I have noticed my playing sounded better as got used to a guitar . I could see tone changing as the wood seasons and ages ....maybe slightly. A soundboard vibrates , that is what its designed to do . If "opening up"makes it sound better , does it come to a point where it vibrated so much over the years that it starts going the other way, where maybe lack of head room becomes an issue?

Ive also heard this other phenomenon where the guitar goes to "sleep" if we dont play it for a while , but what I have noticed is my ears seem to be going to sleep more than anything. Thats a discussion for a different time .

[Kitkatjoe]

This thread seems to be 🙉👻

[whvick]

BUDGLO makes a point that I was pondering also. Can you shake anything loose with too much vibration? Like the bracing or something ?
Or is it bad to only use bass, and is it better to use music with all tones?
Thanks
Whvick

[zombywoof]

We used to place our acoustics in front of speakers and even drum risers t get them warmed up. Problem was that the top soon settled back into its same old used to be. So it became a repeat as necessary thing.

[Wild Bill Jones]

Gee nobody has mentioned good ole tonerite, yet. I’ll tell you a story.
I had a custom guitar made so therefore I could not play it before I bought it. It was looking!!! It was also tight as a drum with an Adirondack top. If I had 10 bucks for each player who said “ that guitar will sound great when it opens up” I would have about a thousand dollars. In short I wasn’t crazy about it’s tone. In desperation I hooked up my Tonerite (here it comes) no real change. Oh darn. So what did I have to lose, I left the Tonerite on it.... for 12 months except when I played the guitar. Well I can say that the guitar sounds different and the bass seems to have come in fairly nicely. I am even getting to like the guitar now. That’s my story and I am sticking to it. That “stinger” idea sounds (bad pun) interesting. For me, the morale of this story is I will never buy a guitar again that I can’t play first. BTW. This guitar was not cheap $ at all.

[Alan Carruth]

The one well designed test I know of involving the Tone Rite found that it didn't work. It's in the on-line Savart Journal.